Bacchus
I am a second generation California native, born and raised in the Bay Area by wine drinking parents who made sure I grew up familiar with the wine riches growing close and far. Over the years of family
excursions through California, we have sipped and swirled our way through Sonoma and Napa counties, around Clear Lake, north to Mendocino, down to the Carmel Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains and east into the Sierra Foothills. Partly due to proximity, I am well acquainted with many of the small producing wineries of the Russian River area of Sonoma County. The Barrel Tasting festival that happens every March is an event I look forward to all year. I enjoy talking to the owners or winemakers, usually accessible and friendly people,
to hear their stories about the wine or their winery. Taft Street, whose Pinot Noirs and Sauvignon Blancs are lovely year after year, was started in the owner’s garage in their home on Taft Street in Oakland, when they were attending UC Berkeley in the 1970’s. If only my parents had done the same! They are now experimenting with winemaking for the first time. I’ll be chronicling the progress of their first vintage— they will bottle this summer.
Being only a recent transplant to Los Angeles, I am still discovering new wine drinking spots, and new sources for undervalued excellent wines. I sample all the wine bars that continue to open up all over the westside of Los Angeles, to compare who has the best Happy Hours or interesting wine education events. I also have ventured further afield to the nearby wineries in Malibu, which makes for a perfect Sunday day-trip.
Probably unsurprisingly, i’m equally fond of the culinary arts, and have had a lifetime of involvement in music and the visual arts as well. For almost 10 years I have worked in visual effects for feature films. My work has taken me to other (wine growing) parts of the world, such as New Zealand and Australia. I am waiting for more visual effects companies to do their work in the Rhone region of France!
